'Deadliest highways' report includes Greene County

In 2015 and 2016, nearly 2,600 people were killed in motor vehicle collisions in Kansas and Missouri. A study looked at three segments in Greene County where fatalities occurred.(Photo: 1Point21 Interactive)

A law firm has studied which roads are deadliest in Missouri and Kansas. Greene County is listed three times.

Wendt Law Firm posted the results of its two-year study in September 2018. The firm found 40 segments of state and federal highways where fatal crashes occur at a high rate. Of the 2,600 people killed in motor vehicle collisions across Missouri and Kansas, 10 of them died in Greene County.

The report broke down where those segments appeared: a 2.85-mile section of US Hwy 160 was responsible for three collisions and three fatalities, a 3.14-mile section of State Hwy 13 had three collisions and three fatalities, and a 4.35-mile section of US Hwy 60 had four collisions and four fatalities.

Here's a look at how the segments of highway breakdown:

The US Hwy 160 section ranges from about W Chestnut Expy to W Bennett St

Sam Wendt said his firm handles personal injury and wrongful death litigation. Many of those cases stem from automobile accidents.

"(This study) was really done for educational purposes for our clients, potential clients and also for the public in general," Wendt said.

Wendt Law Firm paired with 1point21 Interactive to complete the study. Brian Beltz is the content director and research lead for the project for the marketing agency.

"It’s a matter of people looking at their daily commute, roads they drive on often and seeing what’s happening around there," Beltz said. "See if they recognize, ‘Oh, I drive this stretch all the time. There’s something there that I always felt was a little dangerous. There was a problem with it.’"

Beltz said they used data from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

"We wanted to see if we could pinpoint some areas that were higher concentrations of collisions occurring," Beltz said. "They have a fatality analysis reporting system that keeps track of fatal crash data from multi-jurisdictions and they break it down by date."

The company was able to determine which sections of highway overlapped and fatal motor vehicle collisions occurred, Beltz said.

"It’s arranged by fatal crashes per mile, so the length of the stretch is taken into account," Beltz said. "So, if there’s three crashes on one of the stretches on our list, that has a much higher fatality per mile crash rate."

Historically, the Missouri Department of Transportation officials have said the volume of traffic tends to correlate to the number of crashes.

In a previous News-Leader story, Chris Rutledge, assistant district engineer for MoDOT's Southeast District, said a high volume of traffic on one rural highway may explain the number of fatalities. A stretch of US Hwy 63 saw 16 fatalities over 10 years, but that appears to be about par for the course on high-volume roadways.

"It's probably the highest traveled two-lane route in south-central Missouri," Rutledge said of the US Hwy 63 stretch.

Likewise, the stretches highlighted in the law firm study are among the most trafficked around Springfield.